Field
The disclosed and claimed concept relates generally to animal kennels and, more particularly, to a movable partition that is usable with an animal kennel, and to a kennel apparatus.
Related Art
Animal kennels are generally known for use in the training and reposing of animals Animal kennels typically include some type of a door that can be opened and closed in order to enable an animal to be received within an interior of the kennel and removed therefrom. While such kennels have been generally effective for their intended uses, they have not been without limitation.
Kennel training, or crate training as it is sometimes known, is usable to housebreak a dog and for other types of training A dog will typically not relieve itself in the same place where it sleeps. However, if an animal is reposed within a kennel that is significantly larger than the animal itself, the animal may relieve itself in one part of the kennel and lie or sleep in another part of the kennel. Such a situation is counterproductive to the desired housebreaking training of an animal. It thus can be seen that an animal in training is desirably retained within a space that is sized appropriately for the animal. However, this can be difficult in some circumstances.
By way of example, when a large breed dog is raised from a small puppy to a full grown adult, the animal's size changes dramatically. While a pet owner potentially could purchase several different kennels of successively larger size in order to accommodate and train the growing animal, such a practice would be cost prohibitive. The owner of a puppy that is expected to grow to a much larger size is typically disinterested in purchasing numerous kennels of various sizes, many of which will be used for only a short period of time, and rather would prefer to purchase only a single kennel whose size will be suited to the animal when it is a full grown adult. In so doing, however, this leaves the potential for the animal, when small, to relieve itself in a far region of the kennel while lying or sleeping at another end of the kennel which, as set forth above, is undesirable. It thus would be preferred to provide an improved device that overcomes these and other shortcomings known in the relevant art.